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Reuters

Obama is open to a big budget deal, but wants more revenues

“I am prepared, eager and anxious to do a big deal, a big package, that ends this governance by crisis where every two weeks, or every two months, or every six months, we are threatening this hard-won recovery,” Obama told House of Representatives Democrats attending a three-day retreat. …

“The rest of the way moving forward, we can do some additional reforms, and make our health care programs work better, and make them more efficient, and we can cut out programs that we don’t need,” he said.

“But it also means that we’ve got to be able to close some tax loopholes that the average American cannot take advantage of, to raise the revenue to actually do the job in a way that allows us to continue to grow,” the president told House Democrats.

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Hello…McObama….

History tells you..cut tax rates and the government gets more in its coffers…you know…more “revenue” since there are more people to take it from by force pay taxes and as they succeed and prosper, more tax “revenue” for the government.

But then, Commies were never good at learning from history. They they think they can “just tweak that old plan a bit” and make it work.

Tax the political campaigns for the businesses that they are. If the Obama campaign raised a billion dollars, then that should be $35 million in taxes. Same for Romney. If we have to sacrifice, so should they.

Heck,
Let’s get these campaigns to pay the people they owe money to as a start. I understand that many campaigns still owe vendors money for products and services they provided in good faith.

Frankly, I’d require that any political campaign that wants something from my business put up 50% of the anticipated costs up front to minimize my potential losses. Heck, I’d require 100% payment if I thought it was prudent. I might “lose” the order, but if I wasn’t going to get paid for it anyway, it isn’t a “lose” but a “win.”

Uh, hey there, Barry. You told Charlie Gibson back in ’08 that you were more concerned with fairness than revenues when it comes to tax policy. You could live with less revenue as long as you thought that fairness had been achieved. Why are you so concerned with revenues all of a sudden?

This is no swipe at you, but I simply want to make a point about the term loopholes. I love this damn a** politicians who disparage legitimately enacted tax deductions that have been in the Internal Revenue Code longer than most of them have been alive.

To be sure, you can walk through the sections of the IRC that deal with corporations and other business entities and find provisions that favor certain industries. Fine–amend them in broad-based tax reform.

But when it comes to individuals, the talking points are usually about the itemized deductions listed on Schedule A of a Form 1040. And let’s be clear that in the case of each deduction, it involves a taxpayer’s expenditure of cash or some other asset that Congress has long ago decided warrants reducing that taxpayer’s taxable income for that year because the expenditure relates to an activity that Congress is willing to underwrite. Unreimbursed medical expenses (to alleviate hardships to some extent); mortgage interest (to promote home ownership); real estate taxes (same); state and local income taxes (in effect, a revenue transfer from the feds to the states); charitable contributions (to promote individual charitable giving). There are a few other Mickey Mouse deductions, but all have previously passed muster as promoting policies that Congress favors. To disparage them now as loopholes–shenanigans that enable taxpayers to get away with something–is absurd.

If we want to revisit these deductions, great. Let’s start with state and local income tax deductions. Why should residents of low-tax states and local governments subsidize the residents of high-tax areas? Eliminate the deduction altogether. Indeed, that fat a** Nadler from New York has, in the past, tried to get legislation passed that would enhance the ability of residents of high-tax areas to deduct their taxes. Mortgage interest and real estate taxes? Maybe there should be a cap so that the feds aren’t subsidizing the purchase of home over a certain value. Charitable? I tend to see this one as sacrosanct, but liberals hate it. It means enabling the rabble to use tax dollars for charitible donees of their choice rather than leaving the doling out to the feds.

Uh, hey there, Barry. You told Charlie Gibson back in ’08 that you were more concerned with fairness than revenues when it comes to tax policy. You could live with less revenue as long as you thought that fairness had been achieved. Why are you so concerned with revenues all of a sudden?

Bitter Clinger on February 8, 2013 at 8:19 AM

That’s an excellent point. The GOP should point to the Clinton-era reduction from 28% to 20% and the Bush reduction from 20% to 15% and say that if Obama wants more revenue, lower taxes!

Remember this, he already spent the entire tax increase of last month on a massive pork saturated hurricane relief bill. An entire tax increase spent in less than 30 days. Why should we think any other “revenure increases” would be treated differently.